Al Franken Quotes

As society changes, laws have to change to protect citizens along the way. Sometimes you have to try new and different and creative ways to solve problems. You have to take some risks.

Everything has changed in recent decades - the economy, technology, cultural attitudes, the demographics of the workforce, the role of women in society and the structure of the American family. It's about time our laws caught up. We watch 'Modern Family' on television, but we're still living by 'Leave It To Beaver' rules.

We're a nation of laws, but the good thing about America, is that laws reside in the people and people can change the laws.

The Constitution is a total living document that can change quite a bit.

One of the things about the Constitution - that our forefathers wrote, and basically, there were none of our foremothers that were there. There were none of our fore-sisters there. There are changes that can take place, and there is room to change.

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.

The Constitution is a document that should only be amended with great caution.

Our world has evolved and grown more technologically savvy. Lawmakers need to adjust to these changes.

Such manifestations I account as representing the creative leadership of the new forces of thought and appreciation which attend changes in technological pattern and therefore of the pattern of human relationships in society.

A corollary is that, when laws are out of touch with the people, those laws can and should be changed - from the most simple local regulations to the highest law of the land, our federal Constitution.

I would argue that we have a generation of young people, particularly minorities, who are no longer putting up with the kinds of things their parents put up with. They're much more self-confident. It's no longer acceptable to make fun of people because of race or sex. But it has always been present in American society.

I think we're the first generation to successfully integrate American society.

I don't care who the president is - it ain't just all about who's black or who's white or who's Republican or Democrat, it's about who is for the betterment of people, period.

I wish the government and the Minister of Justice would address these legal and constitutional arguments, but they refuse to. They want Canadians to go blindly into their brave new world, but it is not wise for a society to move blindly in any direction.

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.

Maybe the preoccupation with technological progress has overshadowed our concern with human progress.

We have been talking with leaders: Change is coming; you can no longer have a closed regime with an open society - satellites, social media, the Internet - you have this kind, this kind of society moving forward, and you are running this closed regime; this is not sustainable. This cannot continue.

When the Constitution was written, the founders had no way of anticipating the new technologies that would evolve in the coming centuries.

The Constitution is not a panacea for every blot upon the public welfare. Nor should this Court, ordained as a judicial body, be thought of as a general haven for reform movements.

Journalism is about results. It's about affecting your community or your society in the most progressive way.

Learn the Constitution. Then when someone wants to be elected, hold their feet to the fire and make them follow it because that's what we need to get back to. It works so well when we follow it.

Law cannot stand apart from the social changes around it.

Public opinion is always in advance of the law.

We … need education in the obvious – to learn to transcend our own convictions and to leave room for much that we hold dear to be done away with short of revolution by the orderly change of law.

Our greatest present disloyalty to the Constitution lies in the fact that we do not study and criticize it as did the men who devised and adopted it.